Got a toilet story?
The terrific Joyce Wadler had a short piece in last Wednesday's The New York Time s about a literary contest of a sort. American Standard is giving away a toilet to the best toilet story submitted between now and October 9th, 2009 on American Standard's Facebook fan page .
Wadler kills me and she cages this story within the phrases of a exquisite literary contest and refers to Facebook as that cutting-edge Algonquin Round Table. The former English majors who read her work discover this hilarious and I can vouch for that personally. Not content material to invoke Dorothy Parker, Wadler is going directly to pay homage to Herman Melville in her example of a literary bathroom story.
And so on one damp, drizzly November of the soul, I set sail upon a noble whaling craft, the Pequod, despite the fact that the lavatories, truth be informed, had been strictly 16th century.
?Ahab,? I said, ?Have ye by no means heard of the manage-flush mechanism that permits a person to pick entire or partial flush of a bathroom tank and is accordingly greater environmentally accountable??
?Out of my manner, Ishmael,? He said. ?I?M searching out a fish.?Haughty humor aside, American Standard is looking for humorous (and true) stories about the humble commode. This is a legitimate contest and American Standard will award five new toilets to the top five entries. All you have to do is go to Facebook, become a fan of American Standard and then write on their wall. The Times piece must have been read by quite a few people because that fan page is already filling up with stories. Some of them are laugh out loud funny, so poke around and read a few.
Some of the best and most disturbing toilet stories I've ever heard have come from plumbers, especially those in bigger cities. Amid the routine plumbing repairs and installations, I can only imagine the calamity aplumber in Los Angeles might go through on a daily basis. Most plumbers live under a professional omerta but when you can get one going, hilarity ensues. Go ahead, buy a plumber a beer some time and you'll begin to understand why the services of a good plumber cost so much. I'm going to forward this to every plumber I know. I haven't heard a good black water story in ages.